The way the Cabinet has gone about increasing its remuneration package was another perfect example of how things should not be done. It has now gone on to compound the error with the way it went about raising the honorarium paid to MPs.

It was so bad as to make it seem rather like implementation of a death wish, so surrealistic that Salvatore Dalí in his prime would have found it difficult to place on canvas.

Barely installed into his second term, the Prime Minister decided to take one of the bulls in his arena by the horns. He ignored the fact that parliamentary remuneration – his own, through those of ministers and parliamentary secretaries all the way from the Speaker’s, the opposition leader’s and backbench MPs – had been linked through a precise formula to the salary of the top grade in the Civil Service.

He also ignored the fact that no funds had been voted by the House of Representatives for what he was about to request the Cabinet to approve, assuming that was how he went about what he intended to do.

That was to improve the pay of Cabinet members and parliamentary secretaries. That, by private sector standards, was low. By implication so was the salary of the head of the civil service (Grade 1), and by logical extension, of the rest of the employees whose salary is paid out of the Consolidated Fund. The Prime Minister focused on the pay to the political part of the executive, the bull in the arena I referred to before.

He came out with a simple line of reasoning based, I suspect, on how things are done in the UK. There, all those who are elected as MPs, from the Prime Minister through all the many established roles, are paid an MP’s salary. Then those who are appointed to a political role, including not just the Prime Minister and his Cabinet team, but also the Leader of the Opposition and party whips, among others, are given a salary determined by their duties.

It is, like honest political salaries the world over, below what one could earn in the private sector. But political office has inherent intangible reward or psychic income – the democratic opportunity to shape the country’s socio-economic set-up, international standing and future according to one’s political beliefs and skills. Our Prime Minister, without any discussion with the opposition, public consultation or even public announcement added an MP’s honorarium to each of his team.

I believe he did that at roughly the same time that he extended a reallocation allowance to ministers who were not reappointed to his new Cabinet and, unless I am mistaken, to former MPs who lost their seat. This measure, also in existence in the UK, became public and was duly criticised. The increase in ministers’ pay went unnoticed.

Until, that is, a few weeks ago, or around 33 months later. Then hell broke loose. The opposition lambasted the Prime Minister and his Cabinet for giving themselves a very substantial rise. Some newspapers joined in. As is normal on such occasions, public opinion became hostile.

There was an attempt by Lawrence Gonzi to explain the logic behind adding an MP’s honorarium to a minister’s salary. A minister still has to do an MP’s duties, he said (ignoring the fact that he also has a costly private secretariat financed with public funds to help him do them). And MPs, added the Prime Minister, do not have to give up their normal job, as is the case with ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

The opposition and public opinion were not convinced. The baying increased. Which apparently resulted in Cabinet going cuckoo.To everybody’s amazement, lastTuesday the Finance Minister replied to a parliamentary question from an opposition member by saying that the honorarium of MPs had (now) been increased. Previously it was automatically linked to Civil Service Grade 1, at 50 per cent. The link has now been raised to 70per cent.

Early media reaction described that as a 20 per cent increase. In fact it is a whopping 40 per cent. I reiterate that I recognise political salaries are not much to shout about. But to hike them by two fifths in the prevailing circumstances is hardly wise.

If that was not surrealistic enough, the Finance Minister also said the raise would be backdated to March 2008, when Cabinet raised its members’ salaries. Again, it was never mentioned that funds had beenallocated for the increase. A repetition of the raise in ministers’ packages and the appointment of, andan allowance to, parliamentary assistants.

All this strongly suggests that the Prime Minister and Cabinet seem to be trying to buy silence and connivance from the opposition and backbench MPs. They have simply managed to push the standing of the elected political class deeper into the dirt. A few days ago I was interviewed for educational television for students preparing for the Matsec exam in Maltese, whose syllabus includes one of my early short stories, Mass Meeting. A common theme of the young students’ questions was dishonesty and sleaze in the political class, whether most of its members were guilty of them. I replied in the negative, extolling the role of good politics in a democracy.

I do not class the revision of parliamentary salaries (subsequently refused by some of the Labour side) as sleaze. But the way it was done was definitely wrong. I do not understand for one moment what possessed the Prime Minister and wonder that the rest of his team went along. Definitely, Dalí would have been at a similar loss.